Head in the Stars
by nine miles to go
Summary: Olenka Chekov's account of the son she never meant to have.
1. Chapter One

Head in the Stars 

Disclaimer: Don't own Star Trek.

Warning: Author is incredibly ignorant of Russian culture and language. Author knows only enough to scrap together a stalkerish account of Chekov's fictional life. Do not physically harm author, who is speaking in third person in fear of being bashed. However, author would like to emphasize that if anyone has any advice, it would be MUCH appreciated.

* * *

_Chapter One_

Olenka Chekov survived the freak explosion that killed her husband. So did her unborn child.

"_Pregnant?_" It was the first word any doctor had managed to pry from her since she'd been forced to identify her husband's remains.

"It would appear so," the doctor answered without so much as looking up from his PADD.

She held a hand to her chest in disbelief. Her two daughters were old enough that they had already moved on to the city. She was nearing forty herself, ready to settle into a quiet country life with her husband, at least until her grandchildren were born.

"That's impossible," she muttered faintly, but the doctor had already left the room. She touched her stomach, and this time the tears that rolled down her face were not for herself, but for the accidental child growing inside of her.

* * *

He was born too early, in the dead of winter, and he was exceptionally small. Olenka was too afraid to look at him when they placed him in her arms. It wasn't until her eldest daughter Dostya exclaimed, "Look at his eyes!" that she lowered her head and saw him for the first time.

Dostya was right. His eyes were intense and captivating, unfitting of such a tiny child. He stared at her uninhibitedly, his gaze solemn and sure, just like his father's.

"What are we going to name him?" Irina asked, cooing at him.

"Pavel," said Olenka, without missing a beat. It meant "little." She remembered it from twenty years ago, when she and Andrei had pored through baby name books at a time when having babies was normal and right.

"Pavel," Irina repeated, and when she gently took him from her arms, Olenka couldn't help the relief that rushed through her, or the lingering guilt that soon followed.

* * *

The baby never cried. Olenka wished he would, because then she could justify her irritation with him, the anger brimming just under the surface every time she saw his curious eyes searching her face. He had burst into her life in a time she meant to spend grieving for her dead husband. He was a constant, unrelenting reminder that Andrei was dead and never coming back.

By the time he was almost a year old he was tiny as ever, but up on his feet and toddling. He mimicked Olenka—he watched the way she turned doorknobs and opened drawers of the old house and then he would do it too, smiling up at her toothlessly and waiting for approval she would never give.

The house was eerily quiet in those first few months she spent with him. She barely ever spoke to him, but he didn't seem to mind. His adoration of her was so clear and open that she resented him more, because she had done nothing to deserve it.

Dostya stayed with them for a week in October, and he was just as smitten with her. It was a welcome relief to have him occupied with his older sister. She played with him and sang to him and for the first time in his short span of life, Olenka heard him laugh out loud, his smile wider than she'd ever seen it. Over a simple game of peek-a-boo. He giggled so easily, and Olenka felt worse for not having bothered to play with him herself.

When Dostya left, she kissed his nose and bid him good-bye. He whimpered when the front door shut behind her, and tried to work the door knob, but his little hands were too weak.

Olenka left him at the door to make dinner, and when she came back to collect him he was still standing there, his little eyebrows furrowed at the door in concentration. She took pity on him and opened it, hoping that it would make him understand that Dostya was gone. He stood in the open doorway for a moment, scanning the field in front of him. Then he walked forward, barefoot in the cold.

"Come inside," Olenka chided him softly, and for the first time he ignored her.

Instead he reached his skinny arms up at the night sky, his little fists clenching and unclenching like he was trying to catch something in his palm.

"What are you doing?"

His face was thoughtful. "Stars," he said, and the word was unmistakable.

"Stars?" Olenka had never heard him utter a single word. She was so shocked by the sound of his high, tinny voice that for a moment she could only gape at him.

"Da!" he exclaimed, his arms flying up like a bird.

On a whim she swept him into her arms and pressed him against her so that she could feel the giggle in his chest. "Say '_mama_,'" she whispered to him.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. "Say '_mama_,'" she pleaded with him again.

He reached out to touch her face, pressing his hand against the tear on her cheek, but he didn't say it. She held him there in the bitter cold for a few minutes, waiting, and when she felt a violent shiver run up his body she relented and took him inside. She set him down on the hardwood floor and crouched down to his level.

"Say it. Say '_mama_'."

She hadn't meant to sound angry, but he flinched away from her, his lower lip trembling. Ashamed with herself, she stood up and motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen.

"Mama."

He said it so tremulously that she halted mid-step, feeling her heart wrench. "That's right," she said with a hollow smile. He looked up at her warily.

She took a shuddering breath, collecting herself. "I'm so sorry," she said. "For everything."

Of course he didn't understand. He just followed her to the dinner table, cooperative as ever, and didn't speak for the rest of the night.

* * *

After that week with Dostya, Olenka let him watch the television. At first he wasn't very interested by it, and then she turned up the volume and he was absolutely transfixed. Whenever she turned on the screen he would stand in front of it in rapt attention, and when she turned it off he abandoned it without a fuss.

As it turned out, it was the catalyst he needed. Within a week he was speaking in chopped sentences, and within a month he could hold rudimentary conversation with her. He would talk to himself before he fell asleep at night, and talk to himself when Olenka decided not to respond. His words were alarmingly coherent. He was barely a year old, and she knew from past experience how abnormal his progress was. It was the first time she understood that he was different from other children—more intelligent, more independent. She felt further from him than ever, because she couldn't understand.

One day at breakfast he asked, "Do I have a father?"

She had expected him to ask eventually, but the question still came as an affront. "He's dead," she said tersely. Her eyes flickered up from the article she was reading to gage his reaction. She wasn't sure if he knew what "dead" even meant, but apparently he did, because he nodded somberly in acceptance.

Olenka softened. "He had curls like yours."

The one-year-old touched the topple of hair on his head. "Do you have a . . ." His nose scrunched in thought.

"Picture?"

"Picture," he echoed.

"Yes, I have pictures."

She recognized the question in his eyes. "Some other day," she said softly, because she didn't think she could bear looking at pictures of Andrei when she already has this miniature version of him sitting across from her at the kitchen table.

* * *

The questions all started after that. He was particularly intrigued with letters and numbers. He would grab boxes of food or laundry detergent and ask what was written on the back, guiding his finger along the words as she impatiently recited them for him.

When he was not yet two years old, Irina and Dostya visited for the holidays, and were shocked when he read a news headline out loud in front of them.

"He's reading _already?"_ Irina marveled, and he blushed when she ruffled his hair. "But he's still so little!"

Dostya shook her head, grinning. "Imagine that. Our little Pavel's a whiz kid."

His face twisted. "Pavel?" he repeated imploringly, looking up at his sisters.

Olenka felt as though she had swallowed acid when she realized the root of his confusion. She never addressed him by his name—of course he didn't know. She was the only one he interacted with.

"Yes. Pavel," she emphasized, the name almost foreign on her tongue. "You are quite intelligent for your age."

She recognized the comprehension on his face. He pressed a hand to his chest. "Pavel," he repeated under his breath, lowly enough that Irina and Dostya did not notice. They enthusiastically pulled up new headlines on the PADD, shocked and delighted as he sounded the words out, so enthralled that they did not see the paleness of Olenka's skin or the expression of self-loathing that crossed her face.

* * *

By two and a half years old he was more than capable of maneuvering around the house by himself. He and Olenka fell into a routine of sorts. He would wake and nestle on the other side of her bed, so that she woke to his wide, blue eyes every morning. She would make breakfast, and he would wander around outside or watch television or read until lunch, then disappear again until dinner, and then go to sleep at eight o'clock without being told.

Olenka never worried about him because he seemed so confident. Sometimes she forgot he was barely a toddler. He seemed perfectly content and this was enough for her to almost forgive herself for leaving him to his own devices.

Then one day he was late to dinner. Olenka sat by herself for a good ten minutes, not touching any of the food. Usually the boy would arrive promptly on schedule—Olenka could foresee some sort of military future for him, the way he regimented himself. She stood from the table.

"Dinner," she called, and when he didn't answer she figured he must be outside. She opened the front door and called again.

Nobody answered. The sun was starting to fall in the sky. Surely he knew it was time to come inside. A foreboding dread dropped in the pit of her stomach, and she walked outside, scanning the open field for any sign of him.

"Where are you?" she called. There was nobody else around for at least a mile, and the main road was a long way off from the house, but she couldn't help wondering if someone had pulled up and snatched him. Pushing the horrible thought aside, she trudged to the side of the house, near the little pond out back.

When there was still no sign of him she felt her heart seize with outright panic. How could she be so stupid? He was only two years old. What the hell was she thinking, letting him run around on his own all day? He could have wandered off or been kidnapped or worse, because she was careless and inattentive and she never stopped to think of the consequences.

Olenka was running now, circling around the house in search of him. It was like running through a dream, as if she couldn't control her breath hitching and her feet thudding against the grass. If something terrible had happened to him, she would never forgive herself.

She would also know that she deserved it.

"Don't punish him, not because of me," she gasped, coming to a stop in front of the house. There was nobody to hear her desperate pleas, but she couldn't stop herself. "Please, please, let him be okay."

When she wiped the moisture from her eyes, she saw the curly head pressed into the grass, unmoving. "Oh, God," she cried. Her legs pushed forward of their own volition, and the distance between them seemed to go on forever. She reached him and collapsed to her knees.

It was him. Lying under the tree, his face peaceful and white as a ghost, save for the streak of red dripping from his forehead.

"Wake up." Her voice cracked. For a stark moment she would never forget, she thought he was dead, and that her world had just ended. She thought of how ashamed Andrei would be to see how she had neglected their son. She thought of waking up in the morning to an empty bed. She thought of life without his bright eyes and questions and joy.

She sucked in a breath and shook him. "Wake up," she begged. "Please—"

His eyes flew open in alarm. He winced immediately, disoriented until his eyes locked on hers and she saw her own sheer terror reflecting in him.

"Pavel," she breathed, drawing him close to her.

He gasped, and for the first time since he was born he wailed outright, and she thought she might never have heard a sweeter sound in her whole life. Great, gulping sobs escaped him, and she clung to him, sobbing just as hard, mindlessly chanting, "Pavel, Pavel, it's okay, I'm here, shhhh, it's okay."

His arms curled around her and she clung to him so fiercely she thought she might never let him go.

* * *

Thanks for reading :)

Expect an update in the next few days!


	2. Chapter Two

Head in the Stars 

Disclaimer: Don't own Star Trek.

* * *

_Chapter Two_

Once everything had settled down and she'd cleaned and wrapped the gash on Pavel's forehead, Olenka set him on the couch and sat beside him.

"Were you trying to climb the tree?" she asked him softly.

He nodded. "I didn't reach the sky," he said, despondent.

She touched a hand to his curls, pulling him closer to her. It was reassuring, in a way, that despite his unusual intellect he was still naïve enough to believe he could touch the sky by climbing up a tree. He was still a little boy. It wasn't too late for her to make things right with him.

"You'll get there one day," she promised him. Most children went on field trips to Mars as early as third grade, and he would probably get his fill of the sky then.

* * *

When Pavel was three years old his sister Dostya brought home her fiancé, a recent graduate from Starfleet academy whose ship assignment was expected within the week.

"Is this really what you want?" Olenka asked her eldest daughter cautiously.

Dostya did not hesitate. "Yes. I love Alek."

"He could be gone for years."

"It's worth the wait," Dostya said in all sincerity, gazing out at Alek and Pavel through the window. Pavel was pointing emphatically toward the sky and Alek obligingly lifted him up, no doubt because Pavel was trying to reach it again. Dostya smiled at the scene, then turned back to her mother and fixed her gaze on her. "You should know that."

"What if you change your mind?" said Olenka, ignoring the last remark. "What if he leaves on that starship and you wish you had gone with him? What if he is gone for a long time and you meet some other nice Russian boy and love him more?"

Dostya only shook her head. "You didn't. I won't, either."

Olenka huffed in acceptance. "Alright, then. He seems like a good man."

Alek tossed Pavel in the air and they could hear his squeal of delight from inside the house. Dostya laughed and ran outside to join them, and the three of them seemed like such a perfect little family playing out in the front yard that Olenka couldn't help but wonder if Pavel might just be happier with them.

* * *

Olenka had not realized how proficient Pavel was in math until she had absent-mindedly flipped the channel to one of those space cartoons he liked to watch. She'd taken to joining her son on the couch now, so he didn't have to run all the way upstairs whenever he had a question. This time when he piped up, he was more muttering to himself, but she caught it anyway.

"What was that, Pavel?" she asked.

He tore his eyes from the screen, looking concerned. "The turning radius he set is too narrow for a Constitution-era ship," he repeated. "Shouldn't he know that?"

She goggled in awe long enough that Pavel shrugged and turned back to the television. Then she managed, "How did you know that?"

He set into a string of numbers and equations that were lost on her, standing up like a school child giving a report to his teacher. When he finished he took a deep breath of finality. "That's why," he said earnestly.

"Who told you . . . where did you learn all that from?"

"Alek. Remember? He let me use his computer."

"Yes. He let you use his computer. And he was only here for a week." Olenka searched his face for some sort of explanation.

Pavel smiled uneasily. "Was that bad?" he asked.

"No, no," Olenka said in a rush. "That's . . . you didn't do anything wrong."

Guilt absolved, the boy chirped happily, "Maybe I could be in Starfleet when I'm as old as Alek."

She took a moment. Took a deep breath. "You don't want to do that," she said calmly.

He cocked his head toward her in confusion. "But I do," he said. He took a few careful steps over to the couch, staring at her with those same wide, blue eyes his father once had. It was unbearable for a moment, and she had to turn away from him.

"You can stay in Russia," she said, taking his little hands into hers, staring at his fingers. "With your mama and your sisters."

Pavel didn't say anything. She knew it was because he hated upsetting her. It seemed that since his first breath he had been so intent and making her happy—he never made a fuss, he did what he was told, he was always the first to compromise. Now she regarded his doleful expression and knew that he was too old for this to go on much longer.

"If you went to Starfleet, I would miss you," she said, hoping that that would be enough.

He puckered his lips. "You let Dostya and 'Rina leave."

He fidgeted uncomfortably. It was the closest he had ever come to challenging her, and in a way she didn't want to discourage him, because she knew he would grow up one day whether she wanted him to or not. "Well," she said after a beat of silence, "there's really no point in having this conversation now. You, young man, are only four years old." She lifted his scrawny little body onto her lap. "And we won't have to worry about you going anywhere for a long time."

So yet again it was Pavel who compromised, by settling his curly head into the crook of her neck and not uttering another word of protest.

* * *

Olenka remembered Dostya came home from her first day of school gabbing about her two new friends. She remembered Irina came home with three colored drawings and a loose tooth. But neither of them had come home looking as pale or disoriented as Pavel.

"How was your first day of school?" Olenka asked the obligatory question when she met him at the bus stop.

He swallowed, considering the question. "Everyone there is so . . . big."

"In your class?" she asked.

Pavel nodded. "They're all bigger than me." Then the animation flitted back in his eyes, and he went on his tip toes with his hand up in the air, leveling above a few inches above him. "Taller than this!"

"They weren't mean to you?"

"No." Pavel stared at his feet. "I didn't talk to them," he admitted.

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

"Pavel."

He bit his lower lip and looked up at her. "The teachers want to move me into the third grade. They gave us all a test because it was the first day, and . . ." He stopped on the empty side of the road and dug into his tiny backpack, pulling out a piece of paper. "They told me to give this to you."

He handed her a permission slip. Olenka read the form through quickly, and it said nothing that surprised her—she'd known, of course, that Pavel was advanced beyond his years. She hadn't thought that it would become apparent to the complete strangers at his school so quickly.

"Do you want to skip to the third grade?" Olenka asked him.

Pavel blinked up at her. "Should I?"

"It's up to you." She gritted her teeth and lied, "I'm fine either way."

His jaw tightened in determination, and she knew his answer before he opened his mouth. "I'll do it, then."

It was then that Olenka knew that Pavel's first day of school was really the beginning of his separation from her. She had the impression, even though he was still so young, that he was meant to go far beyond their old house and the empty field, far beyond Russia and his mother. It was unsettling to think that he had come into their lives so unexpectedly and might leave just as fast.

* * *

They almost didn't let him go on the class trip to Mars because he was too small. Olenka made a few calls to the school and they were still firm in their resolve not to let him go. She could only assume that Pavel's hunched shoulders and his disappointed little face were what won them over in the end, because three days before the launch he was cleared for the trip, so long as he was willing to sit in a child booster to fit the seatbelts.

"You're sure you don't mind the booster seat?" Olenka asked. The kids were already three years older than he was and she knew how easily and openly grade school children ridiculed each other.

Pavel was running around the kitchen in excitement. "I don't care, I don't care, as long as I get to go!"

She smiled uneasily, but didn't let him see. He had been looking forward to this trip for months, and she didn't want him to know that it made her uncomfortable. Still, she couldn't help but feel like this was the final straw. If she let him go on this trip she could never keep him here. He would want to be out there in the stars—after all, it was in his blood.

With a sense of foreboding she kissed him good-bye and watched him walk away until he was swallowed up by a group of classmates a head taller than he was.

It was the first night she ever spent in the house alone. It was unbearable enough that she woke up too early, arrived at the school to pick him up too early, and had plenty of time to worry about the thousands of things that could go wrong in space, even a simple trek to Mars.

Her irrational anxiety only worsened when she didn't see him right away. He was the last child off the shuttle, and had to be lifted down by one of the crewmen. Then he locked eyes with her and ran, beaming in excitement, already spouting off before he'd even reached her.

"I got to touch the console!" he panted. "I even got to hit the button that locked in the coordinates, and I got to sit up at the bridge for the _whole time_ because all the other seats were too big and I got to sit right next to the pilot and he showed me how to do _everything_ and it was—it was—" He was so overcome that he jumped up in delight, throwing his little arms around her waist.

"That's great, Pavel, I'm so happy for you," said Olenka. She couldn't help but laugh at his enthusiasm. He usually didn't speak this much in a single day, and even as she walked him to the car he was recounting his adventure at a million words a minute, stuttering and exclaiming and gesturing animatedly.

The drive from the shuttle launch to their house was near an hour, and by the time they had nearly arrived Pavel had exhausted himself talking and was nodding off in the backseat.

"Your father," Olenka said, not even sure if Pavel was awake. "He was a Starfleet pilot."

It had been selfish of her not to tell him before, but she didn't want Pavel to grow up with the notion of following in his father's footsteps. Now that it was clear that Pavel was determined to forge that path on his own, she felt it was unfair to keep it from him any longer.

Pavel surprised her, though. "I know," he said sleepily.

Olenka nearly scoffed, wondering if he was lying. "How?"

"Irina told me. Over Christmas break."

"And you didn't ask me about it?"

Pavel sat up, rubbing at one of his eyes. "You didn't want me to."

Olenka couldn't deny it. "Pavel . . ." She trailed off. She'd been putting off this conversation far too long, imagining what she would say to him, and already it had shifted out of her control.

"Is that why you don't want me to be in Starfleet? Is that how he died?"

"No!" Olenka was so shocked that she nearly jerked the steering wheel, swerving around to look at him. His eyes were wide and somber, staring at her boldly, compelling her to explain. "No, no, that's not what happened. Your father . . . died in a gas explosion in St. Petersburg. A freak accident. Before you were born."

Pavel looked so stricken at the very idea that she wished she hadn't told him. It was easy to forget that he wasn't even six years old. "He was a great man," she assured him hastily. "He served in Starfleet for fifteen years, but it meant that he wasn't home very often, and I missed him." She blew out a breath and admitted, "I should have told you about him a long time ago."

They drove in silence for at least a minute before Pavel asked quietly, "Can I see a picture of him?"

Olenka knew where all the pictures were. She'd hidden them the last time Pavel had asked, when he was just a baby. "I have more than one."

He nodded, slumping back again. By the time they were home he was fast asleep in his car seat, and barely even stirred when she picked him up and set him into bed. She was about to set off the lights when she heard him say, "Wait . . ."

She paused at the door. "I'll go get them."

The pictures hadn't been touched in years, but it didn't matter, because she knew Andrei's face better than any photo could reveal. She pulled them out of an old file folder and gave them all a few cursory glances, sweeping over them as if each individual image stung her eyes. She saw a picture of Andrei after his graduation from Starfleet Academy and plucked it out of the mix—it was the one she handed Pavel when she returned to his room.

She watched as his eyes flitted hungrily around the photo as if he were memorizing every line and curve and shadow of it. There were other pictures in her hand but he was too transfixed by the first image to care. "That's him?" he breathed, carefully brushing a finger against it.

"That's him." Olenka tucked away the other photos back into the file. Maybe he would want to see them when he was older, but she saw the glistening in Pavel's eyes and knew that tonight the one photo was enough.

"You can keep that," she said. He reverently set it on his nightstand, where it would remain until the day he left home.

* * *

Thanks so much for all the reviews, guys :D :D


	3. Chapter Three

_Chapter Three_

By the time Pavel was seven years old he was in the sixth grade and his classmates still dwarfed him. He seemed oblivious. As far as Olenka could tell he hardly ever spoke to kids at school, staying inside to talk to his teachers instead, who were more than happy to keep him company. There was no doubt that he was charming and polite and already the perfect gentlemen—at teacher conferences Olenka was praised for her child-rearing skills, no matter how many times she tried to explain that he came out of the womb that way.

At first semester's conference, though, an entirely new matter came up.

"It's come to my attention that Pavel's classmates are not exactly . . . friendly with him," the teacher said delicately. "Has he mentioned any of the incidents at home?"

"Incidents?" Olenka had worried about bullies, of course, but she had always expected Pavel to tell her the moment he had any trouble. "No, he hasn't said anything, what sort of incidents do you mean?"

The teacher raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Pavel said he'd told you."

Olenka scowled. "Obviously that wasn't the case. What's happened?"

With a sigh, the teacher said, "Well, he's been tripped a few times, and the kids mess with the supplies in his desk when he leaves the room. He won't tell us who's doing it so no disciplinary action has been taken."

She exhaled through her teeth. "I see." The teacher was clearly ill-equipped to handle the situation himself, so Olenka had nothing left to say to him. She stood up, straightening out her skirt in a rigid manner. "If that's all, I think I'll be on my way home."

"Mrs. Chekov—"

"And if you don't mind, I'm taking Pavel home with me for the day."

The teacher opened his mouth to protest, but immediately clamped it when he met the full brunt of Olenka's stare. "Uh, right, then . . . he'll be out on the field with the rest of his classmates, they're in their recreational period now."

She stalked out of the room without bidding him good-bye. The fields were on the way to the parking lot, and it was pitifully easy to spot Pavel, whose legs were scrawnier and shorter than everybody else's. From a distance it looked like he was holding his own with two other boys, but she saw the tight expression on Pavel's face and knew immediately that something was wrong.

Pavel was so focused on running and ignoring them that he didn't even notice Olenka there until she had cut across the field and grabbed his arm. He gasped, and the boys all paled, their taunting ceasing immediately.

"Ma—what are you—"

He was stumbling behind her, moving too slowly. Impatient, she wrenched him up so she was carrying him and continued to the car. If they stayed a moment longer she was afraid she might smack one of those bullies across the face.

Pavel wriggled in alarm. "Where are we going? What—put me down!"

"We're going home," Olenka said with enough authority to quiet him. She opened the car door and shoved him inside, slamming it before he had even scrambled to his seat. When she started driving away she looked in the rearview mirror and saw Pavel's eyes wide with fear and forced herself to take a deep breath.

"You didn't tell me you were being bullied."

Instantly Pavel's cheeks burned red. "Please don't blow this out of proportion," he mumbled.

"Don't talk back to me like that. You lied to your teacher."

"I didn't want you to worry—"

"Oh, so you were just going to sit there and let those bullies make a fool out of you, huh?" she snapped, abandoning all pretense of remaining calm.

"They're harmless," Pavel shrugged, not meeting her eye in the mirror. "They're big and stupid. Most of the time I can outrun them anyway."

"_Outrun _them? They shouldn't be chasing you in the first place! For the love of God, Pavel, what were you thinking?" When he didn't answer, Olenka scoffed in exasperation and said lowly, "I have half a mind to hold you back, you're clearly in over your head—"

"You can't do that!" Pavel cried. It was the first time he'd ever raised his voice to her. "Not after all this—"

"After all _what_, Pavel? You're seven years old! You should be—watching cartoons and learning your multiplication tables with kids who aren't twice your god damn size. I don't know what we were thinking pushing you forward so fast. You have your whole life to—"

"You can't hold me back, you can't," Pavel babbled from the back seat. "You didn't push me forward, _I _did. You let me choose, remember?"

Olenka remembered. She steeled herself at the wheel and tried to think of a response, but Pavel continued before she could. "Don't you remember? You asked me if I wanted to skip all the grades, it was _my_ decision, so it's _my _fault if the kids are bigger, not yours—"

"But I'm your mother. And from now on, I make the decisions."

After that he was so quiet in the back that she thought he might be crying. She was surprised when she checked the mirror and saw that he was staring hard into the reflection, meeting her eyes in determination. She held his gaze, wondering how long he could keep this up, but he didn't look away. His willpower was chilling, and she turned away first, telling herself that it was only because she needed to keep an eye on the empty road.

* * *

They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the night.

The next morning was a Saturday, and Olenka woke to the sound of Pavel walking down the stairs, carrying his sneakers by the laces.

"Where are you going?"

He didn't look up at her, busying himself with tying his shoes. "Outside. If that's okay."

"It's cold out."

"I want to go for a run."

Olenka almost snorted at him. It sounded ridiculous coming from the mouth of a little kid. "Are you, now?"

"If I'm allowed," he said, almost as if he were challenging her to take that away from him, too.

She frowned at her feet and gathered her robe around herself a bit tighter. "You know I'm not going to change my mind about school, no matter how fast you can run."

Pavel nodded once, his chin jutting out.

Olenka couldn't think of a reason to say no. He was in no danger on their empty expanse of property. "Run for as long as you want." He touched a hand to the doorknob and she added, "Just make sure you can still see the house from wherever you are."

* * *

In the end Olenka got her way, and the year Pavel turned eight was promoted to the seventh grade and no further. His aggravation with the situation was evident in the way he squirmed with questions in class that nobody was capable of answering, but he made no further complaints to his mother, and though she was certain that the bullying continued, he didn't speak of that, either.

He started running daily before school. He would disappear around five thirty in the morning and show up for breakfast two hours later, showered and fully dressed. Olenka didn't think much of it. She wasn't stupid enough to prod him into trying out for the school track team, because she knew that would only open an entirely new opportunity for the other kids to try and get under his skin. She just assumed that running was Pavel's way of sorting out his thoughts, and there was no harm in that.

It was this year that Andrei's father paid them a visit.

"He's too skinny for a Chekov boy. How can you let him run like that? I could fit him into a rung from the shower curtain," Rurik said disapprovingly as Pavel left one morning.

Olenka didn't answer. His visit was not necessarily a welcome one and she didn't take kindly to his remark, or the many remarks that had preceded it since his arrival.

"Well?" Rurik badgered her.

She scrubbed the counter with unnecessary vigor. "He likes running. And he's just had a growth spurt, I'm sure he'll fill out eventually."

Rurik grunted. "He doesn't have much to say. Irina made him out as some sort of boy genius."

Olenka was glad her back was turned to him, because she couldn't help her flinch of surprise. "Irina has been in touch with you?"

"Everybody stays in touch with me. Everybody but you."

If he weren't Andrei's father she would have lost patience with him years ago. She flung the dishrag onto the sink with enough force that she was rewarded with droplets of soap scum flying up on her face. "I've been busy."

"With one child and no job."

"Rurik—" she started, but he cut her off, holding up a hand of surrender.

"I did not come all this way to dig up old issues. I just wanted to see the boy."

"You've seen him. "

The old man rolled his eyes melodramatically. "Please don't tell me you've raised him to hate me."

"On the contrary, Rurik, you have never come up in conversation. Don't flatter yourself."

"The boy has never asked about me?" said Rurik, affronted.

Olenka wanted to say that Pavel didn't care about him at all, just to see how the words dug into him, but she couldn't shed her gentle son in such a bad light. "He didn't know about you."

"What? Why the hell not?"

She opened her mouth to retort, but then she noticed Pavel shuffling warily in the kitchen door and let out a long sigh instead. "Morning, Pavel."

"Morning," he said, nodding curtly at Rurik.

"So, boy. Your sister tells me you want to enlist in Starfleet."

Olenka's entire back went rigid. Rurik knew this was a sore point. Out of the corner of her eye she peered at Pavel to observe his reaction to the blunt question, but he merely grabbed a piece of toast and said, "Yes. That is my ambition."

Rurik leaned back in the chair and it took all of Olenka's self-control not to snap at him for bending back the good wooden legs of her furniture. "How old are you now, anyway? Seven?"

"Eight," Pavel replied politely.

Rurik snorted. "I would not worry, Olenka. Starfleet is a fad among the children that he will surely be over by this time next year."

_If only_, she thought, but she didn't correct him because to some degree she wanted it to be true. Olenka looked up at her son and was not surprised that he was still sitting tall in his usual poised, stoic manner. She expected him to say something in his defense, state the many rationalities he had for striving for Starfleet, but instead he stared at Rurik brazenly.

Rurik was clearly unprepared for the depth of Pavel's gaze, because he looked away first. Olenka smirked to herself.

"You are the father of my father, correct?" Pavel asked lightly.

"Yes," said Rurik with a wariness in his voice.

"Did you want him to enlist in Starfleet?"

"Of course I did. The Russians invented Starfleet, boy, didn't you know?"

Pavel laughed out loud, one sharp, biting noise. "I see."

After a moment Rurik laughed too, and said to Olenka, "He looks just like his Andrei, but really, Olenka, he's taken to acting like you," he said, as if he were deciding whether or not this was a bad situation.

Olenka looked up sharply, and saw that behind Rurik's back, Pavel was grinning at her conspiratorially. Her anger dissipated immediately and she smirked back at her son. "I disagree on both counts. Pavel is very much his own person."

* * *

Thanks again for the reviews :D


	4. Chapter Four

_Chapter Four_

* * *

"It's only a few miles from the school I go to now," Pavel said reasonably, still clutching the acceptance letter in his hand.

Olenka ignored her son's placating tones. "You didn't even tell me you were applying." She snatched the letter from him, holding it up to the porch light so she could flit through it again. "This is ridiculous. Star City Conservatory is for high-school graduates, not little boys who should be—"

"I'm not little."

"Pavel, you are eleven years old, and whether you like it or not, you are little and always have been," Olenka snapped, knowing that Pavel wouldn't take it personally. It was his own fault for forgetting to eat and he knew it. "I know you think you're getting ahead of the curve, but really, this is taking it too far. You can't go to a school full of adults."

"There's a new program," said Pavel earnestly. "There are other kids my age starting. Isn't that what you want? The kids wouldn't be all that much older than I am."

"Why didn't you tell me you were applying in the first place?" Olenka demanded, still sore on the subject.

"I didn't know if I'd get in."

"Oh, please, what school wouldn't take you," she muttered angrily. "You knew the second you sent in that application you would get in, but you were just too afraid to tell me!"

"Of course I didn't want to tell you, I knew this is what you would say," Pavel asserted. "You wouldn't even have given it a chance—"

"Well I'm certainly not giving it a chance now. This was . . . incredibly immature of you, to go behind my back like this. I expected more of you."

Olenka watched his entire face turn red in an effort not to retaliate. Even in the dimly lit porch the unfamiliar glint of aggravation flare in his light eyes. It was the sort of fire she had seen in Andrei's eyes when he was angry, and it almost startled her to see it in Pavel now.

"So now you're mad at me for acting immature?" said Pavel. "Ma, all you do is tell me is that I'm trying to grow up too fast and that I should start acting my age and the second I do, you—you get like this!"

It was like he'd slapped her in the face. "You know _full well_ that this is different. You deliberately deceived me. You knew I'd say no from the beginning and now that you've gotten in, I look like some sort of terrible mother for not letting you go. Is that what you wanted? Was that your big plan, to guilt me into letting you enroll into some would-be Starfleet magnet school?"

His eyes were tearing up, but as always, he stood his ground. "But why can't I go?" he repeated childishly.

"I made it very clear that I think—" He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off with a quick, "No, I _know_ that you are getting too far ahead of yourself, doing all this. Starfleet can wait. You can study at a normal pace like a normal boy and Starfleet will still be there when you've grown up, I can promise you that."

"But if I enroll and graduate early, I can have a post on a ship by the time I'm sixteen—"

He'd gone too far. "I said _no!_" she yelled. "Don't you understand? Didn't you hear me? I said _no_, and I'm not going to change my mind, and it's _final!_"

When she finished she felt the blood rush into her face, saw her hard breaths fogging in the cold night air. Vaguely she was grateful that they didn't have any neighbors to hear her outburst. Of course she had no intention of apologizing, but she opened her mouth to say something to mollify the stinging words—she had not meant to lose control.

Pavel wasn't even looking at her. He was looking past her, toward the road, his expression distant.

"Well?" she huffed, unwilling to falter.

"Okay."

Olenka blinked at him. "Okay?" she echoed.

Pavel drew in a deep breath and said, "Okay," turning away from her to go into the house.

She grabbed his arm. "Don't . . ." She waited for him to look at her, but this time he wouldn't. "Don't do that."

He shook his head and went in the house. Of course he had no idea what she meant—_don't do that,_ and by "that" she meant the guilt that twisted in the pit of her stomach like a wrench when she saw the spark leave his eyes in favor of defeat.

* * *

A few months passed, and Pavel stopped running in the morning. Whatever hopes Olenka had that this change of pace would help him thicken up were dashed, because she observed that, if anything, he was only getting thinner. He hit twelve and looked gaunt enough that a teacher had called home, but no matter how often she prodded him he barely ever came downstairs to eat, studying himself to shreds up in his room.

"This is ridiculous. What the hell are you doing up there all day?"

"Studying."

"Studying _what?_"

His eyes were like steel, boring holes into the kitchen table, where his breakfast was barely touched. "Advanced subspace geometry," he answered.

"Advanced subspace geometry," she deadpanned. He nodded, either missing the sarcasm or ignoring it. Her voice sharpened in an attempt to catch his otherwise diverted attention. "That has nothing to do with your school studies."

"It's a gen ed at Starfleet, I can test out of it if I—"

"Eat your breakfast," she interrupted, pushing his soggy cereal closer to him forcefully.

He sighed, picking up the spoon and obliging with no enthusiasm.

* * *

One day she wandered into his bedroom to drag him to the dinner table when she caught him asleep, propped up sitting on the bed with his shirt off. There was a nasty bruise that was yellowing around the edges on the side of his visible ribs. She eyed it in concern, then shook him awake.

"Where'd this come from?"

Pavel regarded the bruise blearily. "Fell over," he muttered, reaching for his shirt in plain embarrassment.

She knew he was lying. He had started the eleventh grade and was outperforming everybody. If he stayed for graduation he would no doubt make valedictorian. If he lived that long with all the bullies after him.

Making it very clear that she wasn't going to let the matter slide, she set a hand on her hip and asked, "How did this start up again?"

He cast his eyes toward the ceiling and he shrugged his bony shoulders. "I can't outrun them anymore."

* * *

When he came home with a black eye and a bloody nose, Olenka made her decision and hoped it was for the right reasons. "You may attend the Star City Conservatory next semester," she said primly.

Pavel nearly dropped one of his textbooks. "What?"

She inhaled sharply and said, "If it will get you away from the stupid oafs who do this to you, then I will allow it. But you are remaining at home for the duration of your study, not in their dorms. You can take the bus from town there every morning. Am I perfectly clear?"

He nodded once in stupefaction, continued to stare incredulously at her for a moment, and nodded again. "Yes. I understand," he stammered, a smile stretching almost painfully on his bruised face.

* * *

In a way, sending him to the conservatory was a stall. Otherwise he would have graduated from high school at thirteen, with the options of staying at home, going to college, or shipping off to the academy. And Olenka knew he would never forgive her if she'd stopped him from going into Starfleet as early as possible.

At the conservatory he could take classes for academy credit, which unnerved her a bit, but at least she still had him safe at home for another few years. And seeing how happy he was dissolved most of the lingering doubts she had over letting him attend. He started running again, started to look less like a walking skeleton, and even shot up another few inches.

She walked up behind him one afternoon about halfway into his semester. He was gulping water from the tap, and she realized with a start that his eyes were no longer on level with hers. At thirteen years old he had already surpassed her in height.

"How were your classes today?" she asked, fixing herself a cup of tea.

"Fine." His eyebrows raised excitedly. "We have a new professor in stellar cartography, and he served on the _Kelvin. _The ship that met the anomaly in space—"

"Ah, yes, I remember the reports on the news." She also remembered that Andrei had been offered a position as a senior officer on the _Kelvin_. At her request he had set it aside, five years before the Kelvin's destruction. Andrei had been so upset—four of his old friends had been aboard. They had all lived.

With a start it occurred to her that if she had just let him serve on the _Kelvin _in the first place, he would probably have lived.

But then again, he would not have been with her to create Pavel.

Her son was still babbling away about his professor when she returned from her thoughts with a jolt.

"—barely even got away, and if George Kirk hadn't—"

"Don't you ever worry that the same thing might happen to you on a starship?" Olenka interrupted.

"What?"

Olenka's spoon clinked on the sides of her glass as she focused on mixing her sugar and pointedly not looking up at Pavel. "What if you serve in the fleet and you never come home?"

He was silent for a long moment. She knew she had not upset him when he spoke and said reasonably, "There is always a possibility of that."

"You're not afraid, then."

"No." She heard the grin in his voice. He humor was becoming wry as of late, and she supposed it was his way of being a teenager. "I will be prepared."

Olenka looked up from her tea then, and saw that Pavel seemed perfectly confident of this statement. "There are some things you cannot prepare for," she muttered. She would know.

Sensing the strain in the conversation, Pavel cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, "Would you mind if I brought a friend home from school with me tomorrow?"

"Not at all," Olenka said, maybe too quickly. "You didn't tell me you'd made any friends."

Pavel laughed out loud and she winced at her wording. "I meant—" she started, but he just smiled and shook his head.

"I know, I know." He grabbed his dish and set it in the sink. "And for the record, I am making friends. My age, for once." Leaning against the counter, he sighed and said, "It's different at the conservatory. People are . . . nice."

Seeing him stand there, so at ease with himself for once, she wished it could stay like this forever. She liked this life they had together—she liked the Pavel who was bright and intelligent and happy, she liked that it was just the two of them here, safe in their little house in the country. It seemed like the pair of them had been lost, wandering for all these years, and had finally settled down. There was no immediate trouble on the horizon, nothing to worry about. It was selfish of her, but she would give anything to suspend them both like this, to keep Pavel as innocent and eager as he was now.

Pavel strolled out of the kitchen, and she felt again the same pang she felt every time he left the house—wondering how many more of these moments she would have with him, knowing she would have to let him go.

* * *

TODAY IS MY EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY.

(Which means I can no longer say "sewenteen, sir" when someone asks me how old I am, but I'll get over it . . . SOMEDAY, MAYBE.)

Anyway, if that's, like, incentive to review, then be . . . incented? (BEING BIRTHDAY GIRL MEANS I CAN LEGALLY MAKE UP WORDS).


	5. Chapter Five

_Chapter Five_

* * *

When Pavel had mentioned that his friend would drive them both home from the bus stop, Olenka had imagined a fifteen-year-old boy in a compact car. What she had not expected was a nineteen-year-old girl in a minivan.

Pavel reached the door first, and she checked his face for any sort of telltale mischief—surely he realized that bringing a fully-developed teenage girl home when he still couldn't shave was entirely inappropriate. But he was grinning broadly without a trace of hesitation. In fact, he bounded up to her and announced, "Ma, this is my good friend and lab partner, Anechka."

Before Olenka could regain her wits, the big-haired brunette had walked up beside Pavel, extending her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Chekov."

Olenka opened her mouth, and for a moment no sound came out. "Anechka, is it?" she managed after a moment. She meant to flash her a warm smile, but she could tell by the sudden wariness in the girl's eyes that she had been less than successful.

Anechka nodded. "Your house is charming," she said politely.

It occurred to Olenka that she should step aside and let them in. As he passed Pavel raised his eyebrows curiously at her, sensing her unease. Did he really not understand?

"Are either of you hungry?" Olenka asked helplessly. "I could . . . I could fix some tea."

Pavel nodded enthusiastically.

"If it's not too much trouble," Anechka said, the picture of a good house guest. "We could lend a hand—"

"No, really! It's alright, I can get it, just . . . you two can just . . ." Olenka shook her head a bit, unsure of what to say. She needed to get into the kitchen and be alone to regroup. She waved them off in a vague gesture. "I'll call you when it's ready."

"Thanks," said Pavel, and then he jerked his head up to the stairs, motioning for Anechka to follow. "We'll be upstairs in my room."

Olenka could not help but notice as Anechka followed Pavel up the stairs just how much more . . . advanced she was. She swallowed and willed herself not to say anything stupid. Instead she croaked, "Uh, leave the door open."

"Okay!"

* * *

"Pavel, could I see you for a moment?" Olenka asked when the tea was ready. As she listened to him enthusiastically bound down the stairs, she suddenly wondered if he'd even had any—oh, what had the girls called that class at school?—"sex education." He had been shuffled through so many schools and skipped so many grades that he might have missed it every year, and certainly neither of them had ever brought it up at home.

"The tea is ready?" Pavel asked, and suddenly she saw how childish he looked for a thirteen-year-old, with his unruly curls and his conservatory sweater zipped up all the way over his shirt collar.

Olenka nodded, and tried to ask casually, "So what are you and your . . . friend doing upstairs?"

"Finishing some star charts for our project," he said. "She is very smart. We'll make quick work of it."

"So she's just your lab partner, then."

Pavel looked at her curiously. "Well, we are friendly."

Olenka's throat was dry when she asked, "What sort of 'friendly'?"

After a moment comprehension dawned on Pavel's face, and he burst out laughing so hard that Olenka felt herself blushing at her inability to be subtle. "You think . . . mother, believe me, I am not interested in Anechka in a romantic way."

"You're a teenage boy!" Olenka shot back, embarrassed. "And you bring home that—well, she's quite curvy, if you have not noticed—"

"Have not cared," Pavel tittered.

"Oh, please!" Exasperated, she slapped her hand to her forehead and said, "Of course you—well, I don't even know if you _understand_, Pavel, but there are certain . . . you can't just . . ." she trailed off, desperate for some way of saying "all teenage boys want is sex, and now that you've become one of them I am obligated to inform you of the consequences" a little less bluntly.

Pavel raised an eyebrow at her. "I know what sex is, if that is what you are so concerned about," he said, almost tauntingly. "You think I don't know where my niece and nephew came from?"

Olenka winced. "That's enough of that."

He laughed again. "Honestly, though, Anechka is just my friend." He grabbed the two mugs of tea and said in amusement, "Are we finished here?"

She nodded wearily. "Go ahead."

"Pavel, where'd you go?" called Anechka from upstairs. "There's a gap in my star chart I need your help filling!"

As her son flew back up the stairs Olenka sighed and hoped she could trust that "gap in my star chart" was not a euphemism for anything that would result in extra grandchildren.

* * *

A few days after he turned fourteen Pavel began his all too familiar twitching.

"Just last week you were saying how happy you were at the conservatory," Olenka said, not even bothering to hide her irritation as she glared at him from across the chess board.

Pavel wrapped his slim fingers around a pawn and moved it forward. "Last week Starfleet wasn't letting minors enroll."

Olenka's eyebrows raised perilously close to her hairline. "What's this I hear?"

He sighed and enunciated slowly, "Starfleet . . . is letting . . . minors—"

"I heard you the first time," Olenka cut him off, biting one of her nails.

For a moment neither of them spoke. "It's your move," Pavel finally said.

"Of course it is. Whether or not you can enroll, I'm still your mother, and I decide whether you—"

"I meant chess."

She considered the game hopelessly. "Oh, forget it, you know you always win anyway."

"So I can apply to the academy?" he asked cheekily.

"Pavel!" Olenka tried to be stern about his trickery couldn't help the bark of laughter that escaped. She collected herself and said, "Look, I'm not saying yes or no. Let me have some time to think."

He twitched again in his chair. Sometimes Olenka wondered why he even bothered sitting down, the way he fidgeted. "If I turn in the application within the week, I can be in San Francisco by next semester—"

"What is the rush, Pavel? Why do you want so badly to leave?" Olenka burst.

He looked down at the board guiltily and offered a little shrug of his shoulders. "I have mastered nearly all of the courses the available at the conservatory. There is nothing left for me to learn here."

"That's all you think the world has to offer you? Learning?"

When he didn't reply she buried her face in the palm of her hand, determined to bite back the emotion that threatened to creep into her voice. The statement wasn't so much an accusation as it was an acknowledgement of the boy Pavel had become, but she couldn't help the insecurity that fluttered in her chest when she heard him talk so avidly of his plans and the future. She feared that she was part of the reason he was so eager to leave—that somehow she wasn't enough. That she wasn't intelligent enough to keep up with him, that she wasn't good enough company, that for any reason she couldn't fathom she had made him feel compelled to leave.

It was moments like these that she couldn't help but think, _If Andrei were alive _. . .

She lifted her head up again. Pavel had stopped fidgeting, and his doleful eyes were watching her expectantly, waiting for her to say something.

"I understand. Learning makes you happy." Olenka stiffened, but she said, "I want you to be happy."

"I am happy," he said quickly, reassuringly. "I'm happy here."

"But you want to get away from me."

"Don't be silly. You know I will miss you when I leave."

"When," she repeated. Not 'if.' It was like he was already gone.

He just nodded bleakly, turning his attention back to the board. She watched his eyes widen incredulously. "You had me in check."

She blinked, and realized he was talking about the game. "I always have you in check," she reminded him, standing up from the table. "Now come on, help me with dinner."

* * *

It was Christmas when the phone rang. Dostya and Alek (who had, as Dostya promised, returned home safely) were huddled around the tree, and Irina and her fiancé were commenting on a rerun of a sports game on the television. Pavel was on the couch holding his niece, Dostya's infant daughter, and singing an off-pitch rendition of a lullaby Olenka certainly had not taught him.

The ringing of the phone tore Olenka away from the tranquil scene. She wasn't going to answer it until she saw the ID flash on the front: "STARFLEET ACAD".

She crossed her arms against her chest. Pavel was relentless.

"Hello," she said harshly.

After a pause of surprise, a voice answered, "Is this Olenka Chekov?"

"Did my son tell you to call?"

"Excuse me?"

She tapped her foot against the linoleum of the kitchen floor and said, "Who is this?"

"Admiral Swanson, ma'am," came the smart reply, clipped and rehearsed. "I teach advanced warp theory at Starfleet Academy."

"Has my son contacted you?"

He cleared his throat. "If you are referencing the Pavel Chekov who wrote the same paper on warp drive that I intend to base my next seminar on, then no, he has not contacted me. On the contrary, I was wondering if I could speak with him."

So it was worse than she'd thought.

"Well, he isn't at home right now."

"Could you relay a message for me?" Swanson asked, persistent.

"I don't have time to take down a message right now. If you know so much about Pavel then you can send text through my personal PADD. Good day, admiral," she said quickly, and broke the connection.

She stood there with the phone in her hand, feeling slightly winded by the encounter, when she felt a soft hand on her shoulder.

"Dostya," Olenka exclaimed, jumping a little and trying not to look ashamed of herself.

Her eldest daughter's expression was grave. "I saw the caller ID. They want Pavel, don't they?"

"Nobody said that," Olenka said defensively, setting the phone back in its cradle.

Dostya knew her better than that. She set a hand on her hip, her stance reflecting her disbelief. "Because you hung up before they could."

Olenka stiffened at the accusation, and said simply, "He's fourteen years old. San Francisco is an ocean away." She stared past Dostya. "And space . . . it's forever away."

"He'd come back home. You know he would."

"You're so naïve," said Olenka wistfully, shaking her head.

Dostya smiled a little. "Maybe." She glanced toward the living room, toward her little brother and her baby daughter. "But what you have to understand is that it's not about you." She held up a hand to stop Olenka from protesting, and quickly added, "And it's not about him." She shifted, looking confident in her resolve. "Pavel was marked from the beginning, Ma, and you know that. He's the sort of different that can't be ignored. I have to think that whatever time we get to have with him is just a gift, and that the rest of him . . ."

"You talk like he is some sort of sacrifice. Like I should just give him away knowing that terrible things might happen to him."

"You can't keep him here forever," Dostya said, keeping her voice light. Then she pursed her lips and turned back to the living room to join the rest of the family, knowing that Olenka hated when people witnessed her tears.

* * *

I give anyone on this site full permission to murder me for the delay in updates.

I BLAME THE KINK MEME FOR SUCKING UP ALL MY LIFE. Plus there was like this two day period in which I had no computer access, it was like getting sucked into an abyss. I was so desperate I started writing fanfiction by HAND (so _that's_ what a pencil feels like wedged between my fingers--hmmmm, I must examine this peculiar phenomenon).

Thanks for the birthday wishes :D :D. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. No worries, he will EWENTUALLY (see what I did there with the 'v'? HAR HAR) get into Starfleet Academy. Not to, like, post spoilers to my own fic or anything. Sorry 'bout it.


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